I love color! Specific colors! I become obsessed with one, and although these obsessions change over time, they are quite powerful, and have driven me through this journey of learning as much about how to make a certain color as I possibly can (and I realize that my journey is never ending).
I love seeing the hand of the maker in whatever art form I am experiencing: the texture of paint from Van Gough’s hands, the sound of a live musical performance in a glorious symphony hall, the nooks and crannies found in a loaf of really good bread. Witnessing that the object of my focus was made one at a time, by a creator who cares about that creation is what makes my heart sing.
Hand dyed fabrics can have visual texture, variations in hue that give the cloth that one-of-a-kind-ness that says to me “this cloth was made to be just this color, someone wanted it to look like this, what they made from this fabric is a reflection of this care”. I am an art quilter, and this need to color the fabrics I use in my art, rather than what fabric designers and fabric store buyers offer for my selection is an integral part of my art. I truly respect the talent of artists who can take that commercial fabric and make it their own, but it is not for me.
I also am frugal! I have champagne tastes and a beer budget! 😉 And when I say budget, I am talking not only about money, but space and time as well. All three of these commodities are precious, and I don’t like to spend them without intent.
I’m a mom (to 2 boys, 15 & 19), a wife (my husband is a musician/university administrator), a biology teacher to non-biology majors at the University of Redlands, and…an art quilter, struggling to fit all these hats on my head (note: none of these hats is that of a housecleaner!) I’ve begun merging my worlds by writing about what I do in various Art Quilting Magazines and appearing on Quilting Arts TV (see here for details), I have a DVD out that traces my process from start to finish, another one all about my signature quilting style called Free Motion Machine Sketching, and I’ve begun teaching online dyeing classes, so I can share my love of color, and the skills to create it, with lots of fellow color lovers!
My goal is to fill life with color & pattern that makes people happy.